Thursday, December 21, 2006

Francis Fukuyama, a former leading light of the USneoconservative movement, said that the mishandling ofthe Iraq war led Iran and North Korea to pursuenuclear programs. "I think both of those countriessaw what happened in the messy aftermath of the Iraqwar and they decided they would be safer having anuclear weapon rather than not," Fukuyama told a pressluncheon in Tokyo at the FCCJ. " And we are now livingwith those consequences."

Fukuyama is best-known for his 1992 book "The End ofHistory and the Last Man", which argued that the endof the Cold War showed the growing universalacceptance of Western-style liberal democracy. But hehas since distanced himself from Washington sso-called "neoconservatives," who led thecontroversial invasion of Iraq in 2003 in the name ofremaking the Middle East. Fukuyama said thatPresident George W. Bush s administration relied onflawed assumptions.

"You see similar arguments now being made with regardto Iran - that Iran is not deterrable and thereforeyou need to take other active preventive measures," hesaid. "Pre-emptive war is not the answer." Both Iranand North Korea - labeled by Bush as members of an"axis of evil" with Saddam Hussein s Iraq - havedefied international calls to give up nuclear weapons.North Korea tested an atom bomb on October 9.

Fukuyama said that lingering emotions from theSeptember 11, 2001 attacks prevented US foreign-policymakers from "reasonably" addressing the terrorismthreat. "Even to this day the threat of terrorismwith weapons of mass destruction is overstated, andit is extremely difficult to articulate a positionthat says: "Well, calm down a little bit about this",he said. Plummeting US public support for the Iraqwar has spurred Bush to undertake a major Iraqstrategy review. (Quotes & agencies)